It's a bad day for Ben. After years of earnest work, he's been fired from his job as a speechwriter for a Philippine senator. Name tarnished and bridges burned, he steps into what he thinks is a shuttle ride home, and accidentally joins a tour of his own city. 

It was supposed to be a good day for Naya. Her passion is traveling, her hobby is discovering cool things to see and do, and taking people on tours of Metro Manila is her only job right now. An extra person at the last minute isn't ideal, especially if the person is a former colleague and the subject of the day's hottest political trash fire. But work is work, and she decides to let him stay in the tour. 

She's hoping she won't regret it. He's hoping his day turns around. What kind of day could it be? Maybe the best kind.

This book was my first by Mina V. Esguerra and it won't be my last for sure. What Kind of Day is a lovely, very real contemporary romance set in Manila, a kind of fall-in-love-in-one-day adventure but quite.

I really enjoyed this story and absolutely loved both the hero and heroine. My favourite aspect was that both of them are in their early 30s and still haven't figured their lives, neither professionally, nor personally. They act like adults and take life seriously but we also see them as vulnerable, feeling unsettled, questioning their choices which I find most natural state of being.

To some extend I related to this book on a personal level, as someone who works in government in my own country thus touching a bit on politics and policy making. The way this topic was explored in the story form the different perspectives of Naya and Ben resonated with me a lot.

I loved the meet cute and the idea of meeting someone on the worst day of your life and having them quite unexpectedly make it a much better day for you. I also loved how the romance acknowledged there is such a thing as bad timing and sometimes people need time to sort some things, their romantic feelings included, on their own before entering a relationship. The attraction was there from the start but it was not really a love at first sight. Neither Nay, nor Ben was really looking for a relationship, the change of attitude happened naturally, over time, along with other choices they had to make regarding their lives.

I found the flow of the story smooth and the writing was fun and engaging, we get to see a lot of Manila in this story (somewhere I have never been) and it felt good, like going on a trip and making new friends. It's a feel-good romance which I greatly recommend.

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